The Image of Brothers
by DarkestWolfx
Summary: There was something cleansing in being able to create what you wished, to edit what exists or to simply breathe in the image of serenity: the image of brothers.


You probably need to think TOS not TAG.

* * *

There.

Green would go _there_.

And blue could meet it here, but not over here or it would meld into red. He didn't want purple or he'd have put it in himself.

He looked back over the casein painting and breathed. These were his 'I have time' paintings, the ones he rarely got to finish these days. But at least the paint was quick drying and strong. They usually managed to last until he had the time to pick back up those few he couldn't finish in one of their straight breaks. Panels were stronger than canvases. Even Gordon couldn't 'accidently' damage one.

There was nice touch to the ground paint made up from home products. Paint which smelt more like home than it did chemicals. You could buy it, but it wasn't the same. You had to make it up yourself to use it. You had to in order for it to smell right. To smell like curd and soured milk as off as bread left untouched for weeks.

Like boiled vegetables with hints of steam and excess oil, or polished nails coated a few too many times with the pungent whiffs of shellac.

Part of it though, smelt like hair, like hair that had been washed, purged from any kind of dust.

Part of it strangely reminded him of him.

* * *

Kniphofia's had to be orange.

They looked _wrong_ in any other shade. It wasn't just because the colour didn't match though, it was because it altered the smell: it edited a picture which should never be changed.

You couldn't take away a smell so free, full of summer and colour.

That smelt like night and open air, that smell like bronze tipped engravings and fresh breaths. Which appear like slender figures bathed in sunlight, calm and serene with just a spike of danger.

He looked up at the fading sky and considered in the last streams of daylight if he had it right. The wide open sea just washing its way in to meet a beach which from up high ran straight into a mass collection of orange dots and green swirls. The realistic outdoors scene, copied over as it was with nothing additional yet nothing abstracted.

It was what it was.

And part of it reminded him of John.

* * *

A _stab_ … then a twist… then a throw and a splatter.

Thinking - almost dripping, strong and relentless, but running with a hint of nerves – in quantities of multitudes.

This was his nervous style, one he used rarely unless a rescue has rattled him or a situation frightened him. He didn't like to acknowledge that he had nerves.

It was the time for thinking, for acknowledging just what that pit in his stomach or lump in his throat meant. To find a way of venting the distractions and bringing back the ability to be ready for any kind of action. It was his way of feeling without doing any talking.

Feelings revived by on-the-brink situations, by an uproar of nerves.

But nerves came from danger, from watching thrills which couldn't be stomached by another.

It was anger, it was tensions; it was risks and it was chances.

It was energy.

It was a part that reminded him of Alan.

* * *

His detailed paintings weren't the same as his time consuming ones: they didn't take him as long.

The style was different and it _connected_ with him. It knew him like one would the back of their hand, the word in the forefront of their mind which lips cannot speak, the thing they want to do, but don't know how to start… It was a relationship that had no boundaries, no stopgaps. It only worked between two.

It only worked in _that_ way.

It was precise. Precise, still open with scope, a brilliant range of ideas, an attractive mind full of practical spheres of thoughts and solutions. It was sophisticated beyond its years and necessary even though some had passed.

Always his favourite part was watching them fuse into one, seeing them become a flawless unit compared to a single stroke of brushwork.

He liked to feel the way they effortless crossed as though they had always been in that form.

Instinctive and impulsive, essential and encompassing.

Like an invisible glue; filling in the cracks, stabilizing and safeguarding, holding, restraining and then releasing. It knew what to grab and when, which to support and which to leave alone to fend.

It was that.

It was that part which reminded him of Scott.

* * *

He could never say why he chose neither the way nor the style, but he used it none the less for something like a scene off a film.

Informal, unrestraining, completely an utterly _free_ – it was his 'I don't need my mind' time.

It was (truthfully) the only time he allowed said mind to be shut away for sleep. He used it otherwise, wearing it down to the point of exhaustion unlike some. What he painted in these moments didn't always have significance and sometimes lacked structure.

He supposed it was brash, silly and smart. It was a personal touch to painting in a way. It was almost instinctive, with no need to stir the mind. He never worried with this style if he made a 'mistake' and imply allowed it to be. A drip here, blot there, splash wherever didn't make a negative difference.

It was a mix of many things, too many to ever count.

And part of it reminded him of Gordon.

* * *

He had five favourite styles, all of them reminding him of his brothers. So when he painted, he didn't _just_ paint.

He painted an Image of Brothers.


End file.
